between the lines
by hitayuu
Summary: It gets better if you just accept it for what it is. There in lies the problem - what is it?  casshern sins; POV one-shot


just something i wrote one morning (10/09/2011 6:50 AM) trying to get to bed having just watched a buncha casshern sins.  
>the art is <em>gorgeous<em> and the animation just kljsdihfsaojfvfasef.  
>y-yeah.<br>a-anyway, have some introspective drabble 'bout the titular character.

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><p><strong>between the lines.<strong>

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><p>Pain, he finds, has become a most unwanted constant. The world, while virtually barren, still managed to remain full in an attempt to keep itself from being completely empty. Miles of sand and dust as far as his dull, brazen blue eyes allowed him to see blanketed the stretch of cliffs that rose up above shallow whirlpools, ankle-deep at best. Flakes of copper rust skirted the surface like sick petals and the last few whispers of mechanical whirs of the incompatible and broken down rang throughout the wind if he leaned into it just enough.<p>

Just enough.

The concept was an easy one to understand, one that his mind fully grasped and comprehended without fault but whatever power dictating his body seemingly could not gain the message. Did he maybe have some short circuiting exposed wires connecting the processor functioning as a brain in his head to the rest of his mainframe, knocked loose from one too many battles he could not, for the life of him, remember? - Or, were the wrong neurons firing? Were they riding the wrong synapses and controlling axons that very well had nothing to do with them that shifted him into autopilot, every one of his senses being overwritten with one command: survive.

To suggest that he was falling apart mechanically would mean he was like the rest of the world, like the broken chassis of the bandit that sprang up behind him lying inches away from his toes. It would mean he was a robot, subjugated to the sweep of devastation that seemed to touch everyone but him. This, he knew, couldn't be.

But to suggest that he couldn't control his own body because of a few misfiring neurons meant he had a central nervous system, meant he had a _brain_, meant that he was _human_. And yet, how could _this_ be? How many years had it been since those bleeding, emotional beings roamed the earth? Not since the robots became sentient, not since they'd realized there was no need to have someone weaker controlling them when they could simply take care of themselves.

But he bled, like a human. He felt their pain, emotion and physical, much like them. While it wasn't necessarily unheard of for a robot to feel - one couldn't scream their yearning for life the way he'd heard for the past weeks if they didn't - he got the odd sense that his capacity of emotional comprehension was on a level much different than the dying inhabitants of this world.

He wanted to know and yet, at the same time, wondered pitifully, what would be the point of it?

If he were to discover what he was, where he came from, _why_ he was there, his purpose, what sense would it make? It certainly would be of no benefit to anyone but his own curiosity if his memories came back and there was still a great part of him that secretly shied away from the possibilities of it all. He'd learn enough so far without remembering anything on his own to realize he was a menace, a harbinger of calamity the likes of which this world hadn't faced yet.

The wind picked up and the metal creak of the chassis forced his attentions away from...nothing. He hadn't necessarily been focused on anything, so consumed in his thoughts he'd let his eyes sit on some indiscriminate spot of sand a couple miles away where a pink flower threatened to break at the stem, holding its ground against the wind. Instead, he looked down, blinked a bit to refocus his vision and felt his throat close. The remaining solid peace of the bandit, nearly as tall as him, dangled precariously on the cliff's precipice, the wind only needing a good gust to spur it forward, over the edge and into the whirlpool below.

Raising a hand to keep his hair from his eyes, he started forward with hurried steps, one arm reaching forward to grab the creaking open door and haul it back onto the ledge. Sighing miserably, he frowns at the fist sized hole, the metal twisted inwards where he'd speared the man through in his chest. It hadn't been aware before but now the dull ache in his thighs was starting to spread upwards, past his hip and into his lower back where he'd taken a hard fall, a result of a punch to the gut that had him winded for several moments, his vision blurry.

After that, he couldn't remember what had happened. When he still had his mind and senses, the fight had been clean - as clean as these surprise attacks were - and he distinctly remembers himself asking the other to stop what he was doing, stop, if he wanted to live.

But instead, he'd been laughed at, the yellow LED lights of his wannabe killer's eyes eerily bright beneath the light of the setting sun.

All he knew afterwards were the broken pieces.

So, like always, it came back down to this and before he could let himself completely resign to the painful thoughts that would plague him into another sleepless night, he wrapped his arms around himself, fingers curling deep against the skin and slipped inside of the hollow chassis. Pulling his knees up to his chest, forehead resting against them, he gave the world one last scan from his spot on the cliff. The copper rust flakes still danced on the water's surface and the sand still swirled about. The flower had succumbed and he caught an idle petal, riding the gusts to who knew where.

No, there was no point in trying to avoid it now and holding himself, he closed his eyes and gave in to his one and only constant.


End file.
